Help! somebody please help!! dead things!!!

[cutester411]

what in the world???
Over night my tank crashed!!!!!
My trates and trites skyrocketed.
I found a dead hermitt, worm and this.....


what the hell is it???
WWorms dying???
is that normal??
I do 5 gal water changes once a week, with distilled water or water from fish store, mixed with instant ocean salt, my ph is 8.4, nitrates 30ppm!!!!
nitrites 1.0 ppm!!!!
alk @ 400
sal .019
last night everything was fine!!!
what causes a spike like this?? I have added nothing ne to my tank except the LR four days ago which was already cured and had hardly no die off.
I am in the process of doing a large water change now. I am running to the store to get more salt as I ran out.
HELLLP

[avshockey311]

Are you sure it had no die off? Did you transport it in water or wet paper? Because if you didnt transport it fully covered in water you will have die off. The rock would be my guess.

[cutester411]

It was a 10 min drive. 15 min from tank to tank I have seen no die off until today. If it is the live rock should i scratch the water changes and let the tank cycle? The worms that i see dying were living last night so i dont think it can be from transfer

[SparkyD]

My understanding is that live rock only need be out of water for a couple of minutes before die off begins. Also how much live rock did you add? I have 130 lbs that was added over a period of 6 months and was supposedly fully cured. Every time I added, I started another mini cycle to full scale cycle depending on the amount of live rock added. Hope this helps. Don't stop the water changes, infact, do more during the cycle.

[cutester411]

thanks, added about 50 lbs to a 44 gallon tank.

bought water from lfs I am going to do five gallons every 24 hrs so not to stress the fish and inverts(Ihave to raise salinity a bit ). The trates and trites seem to be lowering a bit through out the day...... I gues I underestimated the LR die off. Thanks.

Melissa